Defence: Carrier Strike Capability

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Thursday 10th May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, we have an aspiration to use the second carrier, but this will be an issue that the next SDSR, probably in 2015, will have to consider, particularly in the light of the cost of crewing it, which we estimate to be about £60 million a year. I can assure my noble friend that it is our aspiration to have the second carrier ready to assist when the first carrier goes in for a refit, or for any other reason.

I feel uncomfortable giving my noble friend figures for the overall cost of the carriers. We are in discussions with industry and it would be wrong to reveal too many of those figures.

My noble friend asked finally about interoperability. The key intention agreed by the UK and France, which my noble friend mentioned, has always been to co-ordinate operations to ensure that when one country has a carrier in maintenance, the other has one available. Our ability to deliver this assurance will be enhanced should we ultimately decide to bring the second carrier into service. The US has made it clear that carrier availability, rather than cross-decking or the capability of aircraft, is the key issue for it.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, in welcoming this decision, which is not only the right decision but, realistically, the only possible one, could I for the sake of clarity ask the Minister to confirm three points? First, will he confirm that the initial Joint Strike Fighter aircraft to be delivered to the United Kingdom, which will be instrumented aircraft for test and evaluation flying, will be STOVL variants and that this has always been the case, because, at the time of the SDSR, it was too late to change the choice of variant for those aircraft? Secondly, will he confirm that the first carrier, now in build, is being built without cats and traps and, again, that this always has always been the case, since, at the time of the SDSR, it was too late to change that? Thirdly, will he confirm that, as a consequence, the timescales for the delivery of the aircraft capability and the carrier capability have not changed from the pre-SDSR assumptions as a consequence of this excursion into carrier variant?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and gallant Lord for his support. He and I sat through all the SDSR meetings and had to make the original decision. I can confirm to him that the first B-variant will be delivered in July this year and that the second one, I understand, will be delivered in October this year. They are both B-variants and both test aircraft. The third one, which will be delivered within 18 months, is also a B-variant—so all the first three aircraft are B-variants.

The noble and gallant Lord then asked me to confirm that the first carrier was being built without cats and traps and that the time when it would come into operation would not change. I can confirm that that is the case.

RAF: Fukushima Accident

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, safety is always our number one concern for the British nuclear power industry. Fukushima changed the energy debate around the world. Questions were rightly raised about the extent and safety of nuclear power—people wanted to know what happened and whether it could happen again. Our chief nuclear inspector, Dr Mike Weightman, undertook a full lessons-learnt analysis on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change, and my noble friend Lord Marland reported the findings through a Written Ministerial Statement on 11 October last year. Copies of the Weightman report were placed in the House Library.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, the Royal Air Force Regiment is an example of good practice that is admired and to some extent envied by our US colleagues. In that regard, it contributes to the relationship that was so lauded in today’s edition of the Washington Post by President Obama and the Prime Minister. However, that same edition of the Post warned that the relationship could come under strain because of the defence expenditure reductions that have been made in this country. In his announcement of the SDSR outcome, the Prime Minister personally committed himself to an increase in defence expenditure in the years beyond 2015. Can the Minister say if that personal commitment remains today?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the noble and gallant Lord is trying to put words into my mouth that I would rather not say with the Budget coming up next week.

Armed Forces: Afghanistan

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, that is a very important question. The deployment of Danish tanks has proved essential to our activities in Helmand, and the commander of Task Force Helmand cannot sing their praises enough. We and our allies in Regional Command Southwest welcome the Danish decision to retain this tank capability in Helmand until 2014.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, successful disengagement of NATO and partner nations in combat roles depends upon the existence of a political and security situation that can be managed by the Afghan Government. With that in mind, can the Minister say whether the United Kingdom is being consulted on the talks that are taking place between the United States and the Taliban, and if these talks are aimed at an outcome that can be managed by the Afghan Government or are a cover for a precipitate drawdown of US forces before 2014?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, we are clear that military means alone will not bring about a more secure country. We have always supported an Afghan-led political process to help bring peace and stability to Afghanistan, and we continue to encourage all parties to take forward reconciliation. We will continue to engage with our US colleagues on these important matters.

Armed Forces: Afghanistan and Libya

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord’s last point. Some allies shared significantly more of the burden in Libya than others and this imbalance needs to be addressed in the future. In practice, we saw a two-tier alliance in terms of operation. Only half of the allies took part militarily, exasperating the limited availability of NATO’s capability.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, the Minister has reminded us once again of the tragic cost of our ongoing operations and the whole House echoed his sentiments. Does he agree that our most important partner in Afghanistan is Afghanistan itself? And can he say what progress the Afghan national army and police are making towards taking lead responsibility for security throughout their country, at which stage our combat operations can cease?

Armed Forces Bill

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Lee of Trafford]

My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 9. This is a cross-party amendment and I respectfully point out that three of the four signatories are in fact former Defence Ministers, and the fourth—the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup—is of course the former Chief of the Defence Staff.

My understanding is that, in preparation of the covenant report, the Secretary of State will consult and liaise with the Secretaries of State covering the areas of health, education and housing. However, we believe that to actually change the Bill so that there must be specific statements from the Secretary of State for Health, the Secretary of State for Education and—covering housing—the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government would considerably enhance the Bill. It would also give those respective departments much greater ownership of the covenant and would certainly add to it. This relatively simple amendment would considerably strengthen the covenant. Of course, it also touches on Amendments 5, 11 and 13. Therefore, I commend it to the Committee.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 9, to which my name is appended. As I said at Second Reading, it seems to me that many of the most intractable issues with regard to the Armed Forces covenant are not within the remit of the Ministry of Defence to attend to: health, education, social services and so on. If the only provision in the Bill for bringing people to account is for them to answer to Parliament for their performance that year, Parliament must be able to probe the Secretaries of State of the relevant ministries, otherwise there is no effective enforcement mechanism and the whole purpose of this part of the Bill will fail. Having the relevant Secretaries of State append their signatures to the relevant parts of the annual report is the very minimum that we should be doing. Indeed, I would go further and seek to ensure that the relevant Secretaries of State are answerable to, and do answer to, Parliament on the anniversary of the Bill and on the annual performance report. This seems at the very least a starting point and will give Parliament the opportunity to probe Ministers on the statements they have made and to which they have appended their signatures in the annual report.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Craig of Radley]

My Lords, I think that the noble Lord, Lord Empey, has covered this topic extremely well so I do not wish to add much to it. The only point to stress is that the issue of a postcode lottery might affect not only those who are getting help from the various devolutions, and so on, but will affect everybody in the sense that they may fear that it might affect them. It is worth giving a lot of consideration to what can be done about it. I sense that there is an acceptance that it is bound to happen; there is not much we can do, so let it happen. But by the time the media get a hold of one or two cases that attitude will prove not to have been the best one to adopt. I hope that a real effort will be made to try to bring it together as far as is humanly possible, or to be seen to be trying to do so, to ensure that we do not have problems with that particular issue.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of Amendments 14 and 15. I recognise clearly the difficulties that come with devolution but it is an issue with which the Government now have to grapple, and do so successfully. I do not believe that we can accept a postcode lottery associated with devolved Administrations.

As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said, our Armed Forces exist to defend the people and interests of the whole United Kingdom, not parts of it. The corollary is that the Armed Forces covenant and the consequences and implications of that covenant should cover the whole of the United Kingdom and not parts of it. When base closures are up for discussion, many devolved Administrations are only too keen to ensure that they retain military installations on their territory. The corollary of that is that they should accept all the consequences and implications of those bases, including with regard to the Armed Forces covenant. If they cannot or will not do this, the obvious alternatives are either to relocate those installations to England or to treat them as overseas postings, with all that that might imply in terms of the provision of service schools, access to hospitals and all the cost that goes with that.

It is not acceptable to say to our Armed Forces personnel, “You are posted to a base in an area of devolved Administration. You and your family will be disadvantaged as a consequence. Bad luck”. That would send a very clear signal that the Government are in favour of delivering on the military covenant only when it is easy to do so, not when it is hard.

[Viscount Brookeborough]

My Lords, I rise to support the amendments in general and to support adding more regulations and putting legislation behind them. The covenant is a very old understanding and we are talking about it because it is not working. It could be said that it is operated under voluntary support by the different agencies and the different people involved. It has not operated very well and that is why we are discussing it now. We must legislate. When talking of the covenant in this Bill, there is far too much “in the opinion of” and somebody should pay “due regard to”.

We have to be sure that the covenant means something. When people have an obligation to provide specialist help in housing, health or anything else, we have to know whether they have or have not done it. It must not be swept to the back of the annual report for a particular region, unread and ignored. We are very well aware of that, especially in Northern Ireland. I do not wish to go back into aftercare services and that sort of thing, but we go outside medical care. We go into people’s lives to find out whether they need retraining. We go into helping them thereafter.

The noble Lord, Lord Empey, said that there was a certain amount of linking-up and connection that did not always work. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, mentioned the covenant to serving people. I hope that our covenant to them is absolute from within the service because we know who they are and where they are. We know where we are sending them and everything about them. The covenant is equally important to veterans. We also have to do something about tying the Ministry of Defence into having a proper record of where those people are and of noting when they leave the service. The covenant relies on two parts: providing a service and a commitment that is honour-bound to those people. It must also have a way of making sure that they are connected with it. It is no good pretending that they leave the armed services with no injuries and bad effects from serving in Afghanistan, housing, or whatever. It is no good expecting those proud people to come crawling back to us for help.

Today in the Telegraph, I think, which I do not have with me, there is a small article saying that Combat Stress has done a survey—the same people that do the parliamentary one that we get, so they are perfectly well founded. The survey shows that a colossal percentage—70 per cent—of GPs are unaware of any links or effects between combat stress and the stressful conditions for ex-servicemen. I have said before that I can sell a bullock here that can go all the way round Europe and you can walk into any agricultural office to find out where it has been, what was wrong with it, and where it can go. Why is it that it is only recently that records have become available in civilian life on leaving the service? Unless you begged for them, they were incarcerated in Glasgow. Why is it that we have freedom of information about everything in our lives but have no freedom of information to find out whether a homeless person lying in the underpass at Knightsbridge is an ex-serviceperson? Something is clearly wrong. It cannot be an infringement of someone’s human rights that when you see a doctor about a member of your family who is too proud to say that something is wrong there is a red dot or something on the record so that the doctor can say, “Ah. I am aware that he is an ex-serviceperson. We have special ways and means of dealing with them”.

The covenant is very important but it needs legislation behind it. I think that we should demand that reports are made every year about how it is getting on. I also think that the MoD should be a lot more aware of who and where its veterans are.

Defence Transformation

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his tribute. As for as his question about opening discussions with Her Majesty’s Opposition, he has raised this before; I am very happy to take it back to my department and come back, and I will let my noble friend know what the answer is. As far as proceeds of defence sales are concerned, the answer is yes: they will remain in the MoD budget. As far as the total cost of withdrawal from Germany is concerned, I do not have any figures on this at the moment. We are working on it, and as soon as I have some figures I will let my noble friend know.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, having served as honorary colonel of a TA Royal Engineer regiment I confirm what the Minister has said about the TA’s expertise and utility. However, in repeating the Statement made in another place the Minister referred to models from other countries: Canada and the United States. Part of the reason for the success of the reservist element of their forces has very much to do with the culture of those countries and the background from which those people come. It has to do with the way that reservists are honoured and celebrated within society; the view that ordinary citizens and employers across the board take of their service.

I do not for one moment suggest that we could not have a similar culture in this country but it would be a change from that which we currently have. As we recognise, change in culture is a difficult thing to do. It takes time, commitment and a sustained effort across that period of time, and it has to be led from the top. What strategy does the Minister have? What strategy do the Government have for this transformation of culture, which will be essential if the very demanding recruitment targets he has outlined today for the TA have any hope of being met in the future?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, the noble and gallant Lord makes an excellent point about the culture of the reserves in the United States, Canada and other countries. We are aware that this area will need a lot of work and we are determined to make this whole issue of the reserves successful. We will work on it. Part of this issue is mentioned in the booklet. I very much look forward to discussions with the noble and gallant Lord about any further ideas on how we can take this forward.

Mull of Kintyre Review

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I sat through the debate in 1997: I have a copy of it here, including the noble Lord’s speech. I support Lord Philip’s finding that there was room for doubt on the matter and that therefore the initial finding of negligence to a gross degree was unjustified. Lord Philip did not find that the pilots were blameless, but rather that it was not clear beyond absolutely any doubt whatsoever that they were negligent. Those are the four important words: “absolutely any doubt whatsoever”.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, the Minister explained that Lord Philip’s ruling on a point of law means that a finding of gross negligence is not sustainable. However, in relation to some of the issues that have been raised, and perhaps as an aid to clarity for Members of the House, will the Minister tell us what view Lord Philip took of the conduct and findings of the board of inquiry into the most probable cause of the accident?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, Lord Philip's review concluded that the test on which the air chief marshals came to their finding of negligence to a gross degree did not meet the standard of objectivity that he judged to be right. Therefore, the finding has been set aside. Lord Philip did not criticise in any way the conclusions drawn by the president of the board of inquiry.

Armed Forces Bill

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, as the Minister said, this is a substantially smaller Bill than that brought forward in 2006 at the previous quinquennial review, when a major revision was made to the administration of justice within the armed services. Nevertheless, I agree that the 2011 Bill contains some important provisions. Perhaps the one that has attracted the most notice, and I expect will attract much comment today, is Clause 2, which seeks to enshrine the military covenant in statute. This, to my mind, is a very welcome gesture, but is it anything more than a gesture?

In order to answer that question, we need to understand the nature of the lacuna that Clause 2 seeks to fill. The noble Baroness, Lady Crawley, referred to the service personnel Command Paper which her Government published in 2008. All of us who are concerned with the welfare of people in the Armed Forces saw it as a very positive step in the right direction, but it was only a step. Some of the changes set out in the paper were, as we have heard, implemented quickly—for example, the doubling of Armed Forces Compensation Scheme payments for the most seriously injured—but others were clearly going to require much more work. This was because many of the issues that over the years have bedevilled military personnel and their families centre on the availability of public services that are outwith the control of the Ministry of Defence. These include things such as access to NHS dentists, places on NHS waiting lists, access to social housing, provision of school places, and many others besides. The enforced mobility to which service personnel are subject put them consistently at a disadvantage in this regard when compared with the majority of their civilian peers.

In 2008, the Command Paper did no more than commit the relevant government departments to working together to find solutions to these problems. The caveat that many of us appended to our welcome of the Command Paper was, therefore, that it not only promised the right things but that it was consistent and sustained the delivery of solutions that really mattered. An external reference group was indeed set up to monitor that delivery. It included representatives of the services' families federations and the leading charities, as well as members of the relevant government departments. Its first report, in 2009, concluded that progress had been made, but that there was still much to do.

As of today, that progress continues. There has been considerable good will, and much good work, between the various ministries, and the people involved deserve great credit for this. However, our society's obligation to treat its Armed Forces fairly should not depend on the good will of the moment. It should not depend on how much—or how little—the military is in the public eye and mind over any given period. Nor should it depend—and forgive me if I seem slightly cynical—solely on a calculus of how much political gain or harm would attach to any given course of action.

I do not wish for one moment to impugn the motives of anyone acting today. I believe their collective heart is in absolutely the right place, but these are exceptional times. One cannot help remembering, with Kipling, that:

“For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' ‘Chuck 'im out, the brute!’

But it's ‘Saviour of 'is country’ when the guns begin to shoot”.

It is worth remembering the perceptive last line of that poem:

“An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool—you bet that Tommy sees”.

The Minister has implied that the current levels of interest and support will continue. He has said that the people of this country know how their Armed Forces should be treated. This may be so, but it has not prevented the issues that I have outlined from being persistent problems over a great many years. We need a formal undertaking in which military people and their families can have confidence and which they see will be upheld and sustained when the guns have ceased to shoot. To that extent, the proposed inclusion of the military covenant in the Armed Forces Act must be welcome, but what sort of an undertaking are we talking about here? How effectively will it deliver solutions to the kind of problems that I have described? A key reason for enshrining an undertaking in legislation is surely to give people some recourse if that undertaking is not met. In this case, such recourse is not available. Instead, the Secretary of State for Defence is called upon annually to explain himself before Parliament.

I accept the arguments that the services themselves have made—that formal legal redress would generally be neither desirable nor even helpful to their people in such cases—but I have two particular difficulties with the alternative that is proposed. The first relates to the point that I have already made—that the Defence Secretary is not responsible for delivering the services that are at the heart of many of the most difficult and intractable issues faced by the military community. Surely, if Parliament is to probe such matters deeply and effectively, it must do so with those who are directly responsible for the provision in question. If the need to explain actions personally and directly to Parliament is the means by which good behaviour is encouraged, surely the explanations should be required from those responsible for the behaviour, and they should not be able to use the Defence Secretary as a kind of air raid shelter.

Secondly, the Bill seems to leave a great deal to the discretion of the Defence Secretary. Phrases such as,

“as the Secretary of State considers,”

or,

“as the Secretary of State may determine”,

crop up quite a bit in Clause 2. Now, I am not suggesting that all boundaries should be set out in the Bill. Such an impractical result is, I presume, what the current wording seeks to avoid. However, is not allowing the Secretary of State alone to define all the parameters as he goes along a little like making him a judge in his own cause? Surely we need some kind of audit function to ensure that the character and scope of the standards to which the Secretary of State—or, as I hope, Secretaries of State—report attract a degree of consensus that goes beyond simply the ministries being judged.

While I therefore welcome the inclusion of the covenant in Clause 2, the undertaking given there is not yet firm enough for Tommy or Tommy’s family to rely upon with confidence through changing times, and I hope that this can be addressed as the Bill goes through its other stages.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Fookes]

My Lords, the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig, has shot my fox because one of the points that I wanted to make—I will still aim another bullet at it—concerns the incomprehensibility of any one piece of legislation if one seeks to know what the law is on the subject. I share the noble and gallant Lord’s distaste for simply amending the previous Act. Unusually, we have the chance to amend the Act every five years for constitutional reasons that have already been touched upon. As it is the only piece of legislation for the Ministry of Defence, I would have thought it possible for the MoD to start to work on consolidation from now on so that when we next get to the five-year point we will have a Bill that is complete in itself. I once served on the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills. It met but rarely. Here we have an opportunity to put the matter right, at least in one piece of legislation.

On the new part of the legislation on the Armed Forces covenant, I slightly disagree with another noble Lord who felt that there was a weakness in giving the Secretary of State considerable flexibility in what he might choose to bring into the annual report, which will be his duty. I think that can be a strength rather than a weakness. If something is too prescriptive, it is very easy to find a little way down the line that it does not cover what you wish it to cover. I prefer to give the Secretary of State a little more leeway. I regard this new arrangement as an experiment. I hope that we will develop, refine and improve it year by year. I do not look upon it as being totally static and never to be changed, but that we can improve upon it.

I have one or two questions for the Minister. First, other than the measures for education, health and so on that are already listed in the Bill, does he have anything else in mind at the moment? If he does not, perhaps I may make one or two suggestions.

One suggestion relates to the Chief Coroner. As far as I was concerned, the whole point about the Chief Coroner was that he was given the power to ensure that coroners engaged in military inquests had sufficient training. This was, and remains, a key point for me. I point out that although this was in legislation brought by the previous Government, it was introduced because they were virtually forced into it by the then Opposition losing the day when they had said it was not necessary. However, the balance is now redressed because my own Government are seeking to get rid of it altogether.

I suggest to my noble friend that this might well be an issue that the Secretary of State could include in his annual report. Ensuring that military inquests are dealt with by coroners with sufficient experience to do them properly could be one of his duties in the annual report. That would deal with a real worry that many people have felt. In the early days, when there were a number of deaths, the coroners did not have sufficient knowledge and experience of the Armed Services and their ethos, and this caused many of the families great strain, including of course to the war widows, of whose association I am very proud to be president.

That brings me to another issue. The reference committee—or whatever it will be called—which is going to advise the Secretary of State on the various issues that will form the basis of the annual report, does not seem to be in the Bill. I may be mistaken, but if it is not in the Bill it should be a statutory body. It might well need to alter its membership, but if it is not there, what is to stop a Secretary of State who is not particularly interested in all this discontinuing it? If the Secretary of State is to be fully informed, it is absolutely vital that he has all these inputs from bodies such as the War Widows’ Association and SSAFA Forces Help, of which I am a vice-president nationally. One of their strengths is that they deal with individual cases of servicemen, ex-servicemen and their families, so they are at the sharp end and know exactly what the problems are. That kind of information is absolutely vital if we are to have an annual report that means anything at all.

Another issue, which was raised by the BMA in a briefing to me and no doubt to other noble Lords, is medical reservists. They can be called up—at very short notice, of course—but they have found that in many cases being called up actually puts their primary career at risk, particularly if the NHS organisations with which they are associated are difficult about it or maybe have different policies. I suggest to my noble friend the Minister that that kind of difficulty could be ironed out as a result of the annual report. I am of course fully aware that—other noble Lords have made this point—in many cases the Ministry of Defence, and indeed other government departments, have no direct control over the actual people who are going to be helpful or otherwise: the doctors’ surgeries, those responsible for waiting lists, and so forth. I am not sure what the answer is to that, save that if there is a body of evidence that is very clear and well set out, it might have some influence as opposed to power. That is at least what I am hoping for; we shall have to see what the result is.

All in all the Bill is a very good development and I wish it well, and I hope that by the time we finish we shall have improved it with some constructive amendments.

[Lord Stirrup]

Before the noble Baroness sits down, I wonder whether she will allow me just two seconds, for the sake of clarity, on her point about the need for flexibility in what the Secretary of State reports. I absolutely agree on the need for that flexibility; I was merely suggesting that there should be some marking of the way in which he exercises that flexibility.

[Baroness Fookes]

I thank the noble and gallant Lord for that clarification.

Defence: Reform

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I am not aware that the noble Lord, Lord Levene, has made any comment about, as the noble Lord says, lavish residences. I have been to some of the lavish residences the noble Lord mentions and I can confirm that the chiefs use them in an important way for defence, particularly for defence diplomacy, which is a very important part of our objective at the moment.

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, within the single service boards and the Defence Council, the single service chiefs are currently responsible directly to the Secretary of State for the efficiency, morale and fighting effectiveness of their services. Can the Minister confirm that this constitutional arrangement will be unaltered by what is proposed?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I believe that it will be unaltered. We are looking into this issue at the moment, but I do not think there will be any change.

Nuclear Deterrent

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the only sensible alternatives in this case are the minimum credible nuclear deterrent or no nuclear deterrent at all, not something that falls between the two? Credibility is in the eye of the beholder, so proposed savings around the margins of the nuclear deterrent programme —in themselves, they may be quite large sums but they are necessarily only a small percentage of the total programme—then put at risk the effectiveness of that programme. They do not represent value for money.

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, I thank the noble and gallant Lord for his question. He has used the word “credibility” which is very important. That is why I am so grateful for the support of the Opposition on this issue, because it strengthens enormously the credibility of our policy.